No freedom without equality at Sabarimala

Freedom of religion means the right to practise one’s own religion, not the freedom to undermine fundamental

rights.

When Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga’s entry into the Ayyappa Templeat Sabarimala on January 2 elicited a

‘purification ritual’ from the shrine’s priests (picture), one was reminded of the purification of the Chavdar Tank

at Mahad in 1927, following B.R. Ambedkar’s satyagraha for ‘Untouchables’ to drink water there. Brahmins

from the area poured 108 earthen vessels of panchagavya, five organic substances associated with the holy cow,

Changing the way of learning…

Daily Vocab Capsule 14th

January 2019

including its milk, urine and dung, into the tank to undo the supposedly “polluting” effects of close to 10,000

Mahars drinking the water.

The memory of Mahad

Ambedkar’s Mahad satyagraha had two chapters, on March 19-20, 1927 and on December 25, 1927. The

symbolism of mass drinking of the water, with Ambedkar himself taking the first sip, was akin to an act of civil

disobedience. Both were carefully planned, peaceful and disciplined protests, and yet were violently disrupted.

Mobs, rioters and police colluded to attack and disperse the Mahar satyagrahis; the local British administration

ended up siding with the Hindu hardliners under the guise of not wanting to hurt the religious sentiments of this

socially dominant and politically powerful group.

“The orthodox Hindu is a strange fossil of humanity,” wrote Dhananjay Keer, Ambedkar’s biographer, narrating

the events at Mahad. At that time Ambedkar’s efforts were focussed on claiming that the tank was a public

resource and drawing water from it was a basic human right for ‘Untouchables’ as much as for others. He was

not interested in entering the Veereshwar Temple nearby. But he did play a role in temple entry satyagrahas at

the Parvati Temple in Pune in 1929 and the Kalaram Temple in Nasik from 1930 to 1934.

All these campaigns ultimately failed: upper castes pushed back using Brahmin strictures

of adhikar (entitlement) and bahishkar (exclusion), arguments from private property, outright physical violence,

as well as the law and order machinery of the colonial state to keep Dalits out. Adding insult to injury, first they

performed purification rituals, then they obtained stay orders from government authorities, and later they filed

legal cases. At no point did they hesitate to use tactics of intimidation.

At Mahad, Ambedkar endorsed the Gandhian language of satyagraha. He was inspired by a recent struggle in

the princely state of Travancore, where the reformists T.K. Madhavan and K.P. Kesava Menon led a movement

in 1924 to allow the extremely stigmatised castes of Ezhavas and Pulayas to worship at a Shiva Temple in

Vaikom. In historian Ramachandra Guha’s telling, it was a rare moment in modern India’s history when

progressive and dissenting voices, from distinct political streams and different regional backgrounds, rose

together as one. Vaikom saw a convergence of Kerala’s Sri Narayana Guru, Tamil leader E.V. Ramasamy

“Periyar”, and Mahatma Gandhi himself, who asked Namboodiri Brahmins point blank to explain their refusal

to allow devotees from these castes to worship at their temple.

But a decade later, Ambedkar was disgusted by the resilience of caste discrimination, terminally alienated from

Gandhi on the question of Untouchability, and disillusioned about the political efficacy of satyagraha. At the end

of his tether, in Yeola outside Nasik in October 1935 he declared that he was born a Hindu but would not die

one. He abandoned the logic of his own earlier position on tank and temple entry, and decided instead that he

did not want any part of a religious system and its attendant social structure that would simply never let go

hierarchical and discriminatory principles to affirm the claim for equality, dignity and respect for all.

Different discriminations

Apart from the reactionary impulse to “purify” what has been sullied by the proposition of equality, Sabarimala

is and is not like Mahad. True, a specific group is targeted for exclusion in both cases: women of ages 10-50

(deemed reproductively active) at the Ayyappa Temple, and Dalits at the Chavdar Tank nearly a century ago.

But in today’s India, Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality, and the Supreme Court verdict of

September 2018 further reiterates that females of any age have the right to perform the 41-day pilgrimage and

worship at the Sabarimala shrine.

Fittingly, as the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, it is precisely Ambedkar’s momentous

intervention in our life as a nation that gives us an egalitarian Constitution and a strong judiciary. He did not

have these institutions to back him up during his own shattering struggle against caste, but he ensured that

Untouchability was outlawed, and that equal citizenship and fundamental rights — regardless of gender or

community — were enshrined in the charter document of the Indian Republic. The historic precedent of Vaikom,

together with the gains of decades of progressive politicsin postcolonial Kerala, make the resurgence of religious

orthodoxy, caste mentality and misogynistic patriarchy at Sabarimala hard to swallow.

The 5-million strong, 620 km “Wall of Women” on New Year’s Day saw Kerala’s women asking for the right

to worship Ayyappa like their male counterparts. Was this wall in 2019 like the “Walk on Mahad” in 1927? Yes,

in a certain sense. Ambedkar’s procession leading thousands of Mahars on March 20, 1927 gave “a new turn to

the history of India”, wrote R.B. More, the main organiser of the Mahad satyagraha. Thirty years later, in Nagpur

in October 1956, Ambedkar led half a million Dalits to convert to Buddhism. He wanted them to leave behind

their Hindu identity and with it the caste system that discriminated against them.

But women — whether in Kerala or elsewhere — cannot “convert” en masse out of their religious background

because of aspects of patriarchal tradition that oppress them qua women. Gender and caste are both definitely

grounds of discrimination in Hindu society, but they do not occasion similar responses from those who are at the

receiving end. Hindus who disagree with caste can embrace Buddhism, emulating Ambedkar’s example, but

what are women supposed to do? India’s feminist movement, Kerala’s long engagement with Communism and

the verdict of the Supreme Court all offer different avenues to women seeking justice at Sabarimala. However,

a radical resort to Ambedkarite religious conversion does not seem to make sense in this situation.

Reform and renewal

In Sabarimala the Bharatiya Janata Party and Sangh Parivar are stoking the fires of religious conservatism, and

acting against the interests of women. This is only to be expected of the right-wing Hindu nationalist political

platform that is thoroughly reactionary. What is so disappointing is that even the Congress has taken a regressive

stand on this issue, with prominent leaders in Kerala claiming that they are torn between two equally strong

constitutional principles — Article 14 guaranteeing equality and Article 25 guaranteeing freedom of religion. To

make this argument is to display a basic misunderstanding equally of the Constitution and of Hinduism.

Freedom of religion means the freedom to practise and pursue one’s own religion, not the freedom to undermine

the fundamental rights of others. Nor does freedom of religion warrant contravening the writ of the Supreme

Court, which explicitly grants women the right to worship at Sabarimala. Hinduism as a faith is capacious,

inherently diverse and continually evolving, with strong themes of self-criticism, self-correction and self-

improvement written into it. This is particularly true in southern India, where inspiring figures like Andal and

Nandanar, Chokhamela and Kanakadasa, Basavanna and Akka Mahadevi, Ayyankali and Narayana Guru

challenged the bounds of orthodoxy, broke the rules of caste and gender, and triggered popular movements of

reform and renaissance over centuries.

Fellow citizens of all religious persuasions are as much the heirs of these dissenting, progressive and indeed

provocative traditions from the deep past, as they are the children of a modern-day enlightenment brought about

by Gandhi and Ambedkar. We owe it to ourselves as democratic Indians to throw open the doors of the Ayyappa

Temple to all those who wish to enter and worship there.

Courtesy: The Hindu (Political)

1. Reiterate (verb): Say something again or a number of times, typically for emphasis or clarity. (बार बार कहना या

करना)

Synonyms: Repetition, Iterate, Repeat

Example: The purpose of this email is to reiterate the points we discussed on the telephone.

Related: reiterated, reiterated

2. Radical (noun): Advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs. (उग्र)

Synonyms: Revolutionary, Extremist, Zealot

Antonyms: Contemporary, Reactionary, Moderate

Example: The conservative church leaders were not interested in hearing any radical religious ideas.

3. Misogynistic (noun): A person who hates or strongly dislikes women, or who thinks they are generally less

able than men. (स्त्री द्वेष)

Synonyms: Male Chauvinist, Sexist, Male Supremacist

Antonyms: Philogyny, Misandry

Example: The boy’s misogyny hailed from the abuse he suffered from his mother.

4. Orthodoxy (noun): An idea or practice that is accepted by most people as being correct or usual. (स्वीकृत मत)

Synonyms: Conformity, Dogmatist, Conventional, Conservative

Antonyms: Heterodoxy, Heresy, Disbelief

Example: These ideas rapidly became the new orthodoxy in linguistics.

5. Resurgence (adj): The start of something again that quickly increases in influence, effect etc. (पनुरुत्थान)

Synonyms: Revival, Resurrection, Revitalization, Renascence

Example: Within the past decade, a resurgence of terrorism seems to plague the world due to ISIS.

6. Egalitarian (noun): A person who advocates or supports the principle of equality for all people. (समानतावादी)

Synonyms: Equalitarian, Democrat, Impartial, Equitable

Antonyms: Snob, Elitist, Biased, Inequality

Example: The dictator laughed at the priest’s egalitarian ideas and refused to believe all people were equal.

7. Collude (verb): Cooperate in a secret or unlawful way in order to deceive or gain an advantage over others.

(कपट-संधि करना)

Synonyms: Connive, Intrigue, Conspire, Machinate

Example: Insurance companies should not be allowed to collude to raise rates on customers.

Related: colluded, colluded

8. Elicit (verb): Evoke or draw out (a reaction, answer, or fact) from someone. (प्राप्त करना)

Synonyms: Evoke, Educe, Extract, Provoke, Coax

Antonyms: Suppress, Repress, Hide, Cover

Example: The comedian hoped his jokes would elicit a great deal of laughter from the audience.

Related: Elicited, Elicited

9. Strictures (noun): A restriction on a person or activity. (बाध्यता)

Synonyms: Constraint, Curtailment, Impediment, Curb

Antonyms: Permission, Liberation, Freedom

Example: By placing a stricture on their children’s sugar intake, the parents hoped their actions would reduce

dental problems.

10. Dissent (verb): To express strong disagreement, especially with what people in authority think or with

what most people think. (असहमधत)

Synonyms: Differ, Disagree, Discord, Strife

Antonyms: Assent, Concur, Acquiesce

Example: The union is going to dissent with management’s offer of a small pay increase.

Related: Dissented, Dissented